io9 
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San Francisco, 6:04 AM
Tue Dec 22
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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04:44 AM
We don't have commercially available jetpacks and hovercars because:
'Jetpacks' can't be jetpacks, they have to be 'rocketpacks'.
That is, if they are 'packs' (carried on your back), they can't be 'jets' (running on carried fuel and using the atmosphere as the oxidizer), because to be efficient enough to have any usable endurance, the 'jet' would have to have a high enough bypass ratio to be a 'turbofan' and the enclosed 'fan' would have to be too wide to physically carry (and would inhale debris anyway), unless you switch to an unenclosed 'fan', in which case you have to have it above your head, which means you've now got a 'personal helicopter', where the blades would hit the ground if you tripped, or bent over, or landed too fast, so you'd put a support stand under the rotor for safety, which makes it too heavy and cumbersome to carry, which makes it necessary to sit in it, so now you've got a 'portable' (hah!) helicopter (or preferably a gyrocopter, for efficiency) otherwise known as a 'portable person, slicer 'n' dicer' ("Mummy, why did that man's wife and children, and dog, just disappear? Where did they go?") .
The only 'jetpack' that is possible is either a 'rocketpack', where you carry a very light rocket motor and as much fuel and oxidixer as you can carry ("Ooh! Look, a big firework! Look at all the pretty colours! What a big bang! ... Oh? Is it over already? ... Mummy? Mummy? ... Why is it raining people bits?"), or a 'rocketpack' where you carry a corrosive dissociating 'fuel' like hi-test hydrogen peroxide (that breaks down to water [steam] and oxygen in the presense of a platinum catalyst), that lasts justs long enough to get into the air and down again ("Mummy? Mummy? Why did the nice man just fall out of the sky? ... Mummy! ... Muuuummmy! ... Why is that man dissolving!!!?").
... 'Hovercars'?
That's just everything above, again. Times the number of 'passengers' you were planning on 'taking with you' :(
It's not the researchers, it's not us, it's not our mutual 'failure to communicate', it's just (as usual) ... physics.
PS ... and 'Holographic TV'?
Well that's coming just as soon as the 'pipes' are fat enough to download all that data.
Because it's technically possible and there is an overwhelming, insatiable, unmet commercial demand for it ("Mummy? Mummy? Why did you just throw Daddy out of the house? ... Mummy? ...... What's a di-vor-ce?").
03:08 AM
01:05 AM
12/21/09
12/21/09
j/k
people, in general, are stupid
that explains why we dont have that stuff
think about ur commute this morning.....how many crazy, assholes were flying around?...how many make-up applying drivers?..how many people were eating?...talking on a cell?..doing paperwork?
now think about the weather conditions today
now think about all that shit...but with people going over 100mph, over 100ft in the air.......with no air bags, crumble zones, or reinforced steel frames around them
speaking of flying cars with air bags, crumble zones, or reinforced steel frames....those are even worse....can u imagine the horror of drunk drivers crashing their two ton hovercars into a few houses on the way home
and dont talk about computer safeguards and restrictions...especially with half of you carrying a jailbroken iphone around
there are some things that we are not ready for
i am truly sorry for that
but we cannot have everybody running around with lightsabers
12/21/09
12/21/09
12/21/09
Who really thinks peple would ever be aloud flyng cars or jetpacks?
12/21/09
12/21/09
The liability with commercial airliners is that they're huge, and have large fuel tanks.
It would obviously be bad news if a small aircraft, jetpacker, or hovercar hit a building, but it would be horribly ineffective. I think most buildings could withstand the hit, though obviously it would probably kill a few people and require thousands of dollars in repairs.
Though I wonder if getting a pilot's license is as easy as I assume. What's to stop a terrorist from getting a small aircraft, filling it with explosives WWII kamikaze-style, then flying that into a building, making sure the payload somehow detonates after impact?
I guess you would need some crazy powerful explosives to actually damage the support beams in a skyscraper, but if the Oklahoma City bombing is any indication, I guess maybe that's possible.
12/21/09
12/21/09
12/21/09
"I heard that someone, somewhere was working on something that sounded like this".
12/21/09
Just where is my Joy Can anyway?
12/21/09
12/21/09
12/21/09
12/19/09
12/18/09